Generally for the remarks made about the
festival, the ritual, the mantras etc., the author's
personal enquiry and investigation at the National
Library and with the priest at the temple in Bangkok
have been relied on in addition to the author's book in
Tamil, Cayamil Tiruvempavai Tiruppavai, Pari Nilayam,
Madras.

I Introduction

Tamil Name of the Thailand Festival

At the fourth Tamil Festival celebrated at Madras, I brought to
the notice of the audience that the name of the national festival
held in former days at Bangkok and elsewhere was no other than the
names of two works of Antal1 and
Manikkavacakar2
viz. Tiruppavai and
Tiruvempavai
respectively. His Holiness Sri
Sankaracharya of Kanci Kamakoti Pitam who is trying his best to
build a harmonious spiritual modern society in India through his
Tiruppavai-Tiruvempavai conferences has magnanimously emphasised my
views and ordered me to write a book for the Tamilians which I did
and placed it at His Feet as my offering on my sixty-first birthday.

Adaptation - a Creative Effort

It is not from a sense of national prestige that we must look at
this question. One has to study such problems from the point of view
of the other side. When two nations come into closer contact there
is bound to be a give and take leading to a cultural diffusion and
harmony. The native genius of the people and the historical
circumstances, both political and social, will explain why
particular aspects of a foreign culture alone is imbibed. The choice
is certainly there and is much more important in revealing a
creative activity rather than a slavish imitation. Shakespeare has
borrowed all his stories from others. But that is not the important
thing in his art. How he has adapted and adopted these stories to
give to the world his eternal dramas of human ideals and patterns is
much more important for a real understanding of his creative
literary activity. Similarly in studying the cultural diffusion the
emphasis should be on the creative activity of adoption and
adaptation.

Tamil Colonists to the Eastern Seas

The enterprising Tamils sailed to the virgin lands of the Eastern
seas sometimes founding kingdoms and sometimes helping the kingdoms
there. Later the Tamilian traders went there not only to make profit
but also to develop between them and the natives a closer contact
and understanding, freely making endowments, permanent in nature.
Therefore in all these cases there must have been some attempts on
the part of these people to identify themselves with the lives and
fortunes, aspirations and ambitions of the foreign land and their
inhabitants. Many of them, including the Brahmins, settled down and
became the citizens of the foreign land. Because it was not often
that the Tamilians took their women in those days on the high seas;
even the Brahmins who took with them the mantras and rituals
including the
hymns from Tevaram3 and
Tiruvacakam and
became the Rajagurus —"royal priests" — with high sounding titles
like Bhattarakas, have thus inter-married with the people there and
become part of the ethnic and social stock of the country of their
adoption though they still vaguely remember their coming originally
from the Tamil land — from Ramanatapuram according to a tradition
[told by them to me].

Social Integration

These lands thus came into contact with Hindus and Buddhists with
their developed religions, philosophies and rituals. There was also
the native culture and beliefs, festivals and ceremonies. There
arose therefore a necessity for harmonising these conflicting
philosophies for establishing a national and social solidarity. The
king who could not afford to be the head of any one group was
anxious to appear as the common leader and the crowned king of all
these differing people. The very coronation ceremony had to reflect
the universal attitude. These conflicting philosophies and ways of
life lost their biting differences thanks to the exigencies of the
social life in the far-off land without any unnecessary emphasis on
caste exclusivism or dogmatic intolerance.

II. The Coronation Ceremony

Devaraja Cult and Coronation

The coronation ceremony itself became a commingling of the
various beliefs, mantras and rituals of the three great religions —
Native Religion, the Buddhism and the Hinduism. This itself is a
great monument to the political and philosophical acumen of these
people. The divine life theory and the belief that the people,
especially great men like kings and saints, became one with God at
their death leading to the construction of palli-c-cantam temples in
the Tamil land gave place in the foreign country to a much more
developed Devaraja cult in which the kings assumed divine powers as
expected by the people and where the idols had the faces of the
Kings. In such an atmosphere and set-up, the attempts by the kings
themselves in their own interest to establish a happy commingling of
the differing and conflicting rituals and mantras not only in such
ceremonies as royal coronations but also in national festivals were
welcomed and accepted by all the people including the Tamils who
were similarly interested in moulding and enjoying a common life, so
very necessary when they lived amidst foreign countries with their
permanent interest therein. Here was therefore a creative social
effort which should be interesting to any student of sociology.

The Age of Tamil Rituals in Thailand

The Hindus came from South India and also from Bengal. Some of
the people from South India went with their Tamil hymns and the book
of rituals which the Tamil priests still have with them written in
the native script and which I assign to the twelfth century on
palaeographic grounds. One may conclude that these rituals in which
Tamil hymns were sung came a few centuries earlier when these
priests could have written them in their own Tamil language and not
in the native script of Thailand.

The Mantra for the Opening of the Gates of Kailas

In the coronation ceremony there is a ritual called the " Opening
of the gates of Kailas". It is very interesting to note that the
mantra used therein is nothing but the
first song of St. Appar which
begins with the words : kurrayinavaru.4
[கூற்றாயின
வாறு].
This is the Tamilian contribution to the coronation ceremony where
we have also the Buddhist and Sanskrit mantras. Why is this called
the "opening of the gates of Kailas"?

A Tradition

There is a tradition preserved in
Periyapuranam5 that St. Appar went on a
pilgrimage to have a sight of Kailas but he heard the divine voice
that he would get this vision of Kailas at Tiruvaiyaru in Tanjavur
district. We are told that when he came to Tiruvaiyaru 6 the living beings and other things of
the world with which he was so much accustomed from his birth
assumed a new form and shape, a new value and significance revealing
everywhere the presence of the divine Mother and Father. Thus were
the gates of Kailas, if one may say so, thrown open to St. Appar.

The Meaning of the Mantra

But this poem kurrayinavaru [கூற்றாயின
வாறு]
was sung by St. Appar. When, as a
non-Saivite, he was suffering from unbearable colic pains which
drove him at the instance of his sister to turn a Saivite to pray to
Siva to get himself relieved of this deadly suffering. "Oh! Lord!
you do not drive away these pains, the very embodiments of the Lord
of Death; I have not done many cruel deeds. Indeed I do not know any
of these; I have been worshipping your Feet day and night and
without any sensation. But all of a sudden without my knowing from
where it has come inside me the intestines are pinched and twisted
violently. Alas ! I cannot bear 0 ! Lord ! My Father of Tiruvatikai
on the banks of Ketilam!" That is the meaning of the first song.
Tiruvatikai is a place where he took refuge at the feet of the Lord
and where according to the tradition he was cured of the chronic
disease as soon as he sang this hymn.

A New Meaning and its Implication

We have to connect these two traditions about this cure from pain
and the vision of Kailas which must have been done vaguely by the
people who went from Tamil Land. They probably remembered only this
much, viz. that at the moment of suffering man takes refuge in the
invincible force behind this universe and loses all his ego when the
gates of Kailas are thrown open by this true submission to the Lord
when the Divine vision of Kailas and "divine happiness are
vouchsafed". Interpreted thus there is no conflict with any other
religion, creed or philosophy as known to the people of that land.
This hymn was therefore given a very honourable place in the
coronation ritual and elsewhere. In the ordinary ritual in Hinduism
there is first of all the mantra which the worshipper utters for the
opening of the temple wherein God resides. This simple magical
ritual has assumed a greater and more universal significance in the
rituals of Thailand and other countries of the Eastern Seas, which
perhaps might not have happened in these days in the country of its
origin, which was soon getting torn by narrow religious fanaticism.

III. The National Swing Festival

This Mantra in Every Ritual

At least in the case of the coronation ceremony one may suspect
political diplomacy as being at the root of such development. But
this mantra for "Opening the gates of Kailas" formed part of every
other religious ritual thus becoming the very starting point and
therefore the inspiration so as to say of all religious ceremonies.

The Tamil Name of the National Festival

But more interesting and more significant is the fact that the
national festival of Thailand, which probably went back to a hoary
past amongst the native population of that land, in spite of its
name in their own native language, came to be more reverentially
called Tiruppavai,
Tiruvempavai
which are the two hymns sung by
St. Antal and
St. Manickkavacakar. The singing of these two great poems
by the Tamilians in these parts of the Eastern Seas in the religious
ceremonies which they performed in connection therewith and the
interpretations which they have of these poems to the interested
people of these lands not in a sectarian way but in a way which will
appeal to the reason and the heart of the people of their land must
have somehow attracted the latter's attention. It is significant
that the Tamils of these days, because of the foreign atmosphere in
which they were placed then, worked for a harmony of conflicting
religions, a harmony which is growing only now in modern times in
Tamil land itself, thanks to the leadership of Sri Sankarachariyar
of Kanci and even then against oppositions, sanctuaries open and
sometimes hidden.

Sectarian Song becomes the National Song

Tiruvempavai is the hymn which the Saivites sing, whilst
Tiruppavai is what the Vaisnavites sing. The conflict between these
two sects within the Hindu fold had not been as yet completely
reconciled, whilst in these far-off times, the people of Thailand
belonging not only to Hinduism but also to Buddhism and the native
religious rituals of the land, stood united in celebrating the old
national ancient festival after giving it a name after the Tamil
hymns already mentioned. It is not only the kings and the
politicians, but also the common men whatever be their religion that
completely identified themselves with this national festival, thus
called.

The Swing Festival

Their national festival was really a swing festival. It was an
addition to the ancient ceremony which consisted in the ritual of
throwing up water from large metal reservoirs of water, making it
impossible for those who swing, to be on the swing and reach the
prize hung up therein. All over the world we know this is a kind of
magical ceremony trying to imitate the actual rain, so that
according to the old primitive belief in magic, the actual rain will
come pouring down forced by such imitation. This must have been a
very old and almost a primitive ceremony in the festival of that
land. To this ceremony was given a double significance by these
people who came into contact with the implications of
Tiruppavai and
Tiruvempavai.

The Time of the Festival

Curiously enough it was often celebrated in what the Tamilians
called the month of Markali, that is, from the 15th of December to
15th of January, though sometimes it came to be celebrated during
what corresponds to the month of Thai which may then agree with the
period of the Thai nonpu or ampa atal 7 of
Paripatal, and also
may be connected with pavai of Tiruppavai and Tiruvempavai. Without
going into this later complication, it may be noted that the hymns
Tiruppavai and Tiruvempavai are even today sung before dawn by the
Saivite and Vaisnavite in the month of Markali in the Tamil country.
The celebration of pavai nonpu, and the swing festival, thus at one
and the same time, must have led ultimately to their identification.

Tiruvatirai-K-Kali - A Swing Festival

It has also to be remembered that what is called Tiruvatiraikkali
which came on the full moon day in the said month of Markali, the
last day of the Tirvempavai festival and the very full moon day
referred in the first verse of Tiruppavai is the game of the swing
even now celebrated as such in the Kerala country. In the Tamilnad
itself though people speak of Tiruvatiraikkali, they have forgotten
its relations with the swing festival. This identification with the
swing ceremony must have been another reason for the harmonious
commingling.

The Prayer for Rain

Thirdly this pavai nonpu [a fast which ended however in a feast]
consisted of a prayer for rains to start with and even now in spite
of philosophical, and mystical implications, Tiruppavai and
Tiruvempavai contain the prayer for the rains. This must have still
further strengthened the attempts at harmony.

The Divine Visit

Perhaps in the primitive swing festival of Thailand the medicine
man was present and impersonated the unseen forces or a God and
probably he went on blessing every house after the ceremony was
over. Tiruppavai and Tiruvempavai are even now an universal prayer
and there is a line in Tiruvacakam 8 according to which Lord is so
merciful that He comes down to each one of the houses of the common
man to bless him. This must have led the people to look upon the
ritual of the medicine man and later of the Kings impersonating God,
as nothing but a dramatic play intended to emphasise the idea of God
Siva or Krisna coming to every house. There are reasons to believe
that when the King later assumed the powers of the medicine man as
the leader of the society, he came to represent Siva though later
others were deputed for this purpose and were paid for taking part
in what we may call the dramatic ritual.

Conduct of the Tamils

The Tamilians both the priests and the secular citizens must have
behaved in such a respectable way with others that the latter
willingly accepted their interpretation of their national ceremony
so as to call it willingly Tiruppavai and Tiruvempavai. In these
days when nations are aspiring for social harmony this achievement
of the people of Thailand assumes a very great significance.

The Hindu Temples

It may also be noticed that in the Siva temple at Bangkok there
is not only the image of Siva, Nataraja and Parvati but also of
Manikkavacakar, the author of Tiruvempavai, and also of what I
suspect the image of Antal though the priests for no satisfactory
reasons call it Bhadrakali. The people of all castes and creeds
visited this temple and the King sent his presents to the temple.
These priests singing Tiruppavai and Tiruvempavai, during the
festival were honoured as Rajagurus.

The Hymn Sung

They still bear those titles. The first two verses from
Tiruvempavai were sung, though once upon a time all the songs of
that hymn might have been sung. There was an offering also for Visnu
performed in connection with this festival and though we have not
received any evidence for confirming the suggestion [on the basis of
the evidence of the singing of Tiruvempavai] one may suggest that
the opening verses in Tiruppavai must have also been sung.

IV. A National Deity

The Visnu Temple

Coming to speak about Visnu one must remember that there are
three Hindu Temples at Bangkok near the large open field where the
swing festival was celebrated; now this festival is no more
celebrated. One is the Siva temple. The other is dedicated to
Vinayaka which shows the hold which the cult of Vinayaka came to
have in the minds of the Tamilians who took that worship with them
even to foreign countries, a fact which may explain the universality
of this worship of Vinayaka in modern Tamil country. The third
temple is dedicated to Visnu. The importance of the Visnu temple is
that it suggests the significance of the addition of the phrase
Tiruppavai in the name of the national festival. It was this which
also forces us to conclude that verses from Tiruppavai also must
have been sung during the festival.

The National Deity

In the Tamil Country the image of Visnu in any temple is
considered to be a avatara of the Lord in the beautiful form of an
image and each one of the images is individually named after the
village or the city in which the temples are situated. Therefore in
that sense this brought hope to the people of the poor villages that
God is also concerned with them. There is however a certain amount
of parochialism in this. But in Thailand which came to be given the
beautiful name of Sukhodaya "the land where dawns happiness", Visnu
whose image which came to be installed by the Kings was named
Sukhodaypperumal. Perumal once again is a Tamil word. This name 'the
great Lord of Sukhodaya,' shows how the concept of Visnu endearing
to the people came to be thus recognised as a National Deity.

V. Conclusion

Thus this study, instead of being merely tracing the origins
which then would have been of no general importance has become one
of understanding the social contacts and social evolutions under the
natural atmosphere changing naturally, though the period of history
has revealed to us a creative activity of a growing nation to attain
a happy and harmonious commingling of cultures inclusive of
religious and literary influences. Especially when that kind of
harmonious development did not take place universally at that age in
the very land of Tiruppavai and Tiruvempavai, this study rightly
emphasises the greatness of not only the great society of Thailand
but also of other societies in the Eastern seas of those early days.